Hello Everyone! I have a 99 Dodge Stratus that wont start. I was driving home from work when my check engine light came on, i pulled over in gas station and found that it was a little low on oil so i added a little bit. I start off for home again and the check engine light came on again. I started hearing a knocking noise so i pulled over on the side of the road and check the oil again. Oil was full, so i cracked it up again....No check engine light.....Went about another 10 miles and the check engine light came on and the knocking noise came back.....The temp gage was all the way up to HOT. I checked the coolent and found it to be empty....I stoped at the next exit and got some water and put it in. I started off for home again and the car started knocking real bad! i pulled over AGAIN and never go it to startup again.

I had it towed to the house and started looking at it. I flushed the radiator, changed the spark plugs, checked for compression, and changed the oil.

The spark pluggs were real bad burnt! the plug wires were just about melted to nothing and the oil stunck like it was burnt. The radiator fluid/water was real brown and stunk real bad too.

The car will turn over but it will not start. I put some starter fluid down the plug holes and cracked it and got a nice flame shooting out. so i know it has compression and spark, but i can think of anyting else to check withough taking it to the shop.

I also put it on a computer and it came back with no error codes. I have tried to think of more things, but my skills are very limited! As you can tell with my typing, i don't know a whole lot about cars, but i know enough to check for the easy things.

Sorry if i confused everyone, but any help would be great! If you have any questions or need to know any more info, let me know. I will try my hardest to answer the question. Keep my skill comment in mind though! :-)

 

Headgasket.

 

If it's the headgasket wouldnt it leak antifreeze? Let me add something else. When i turn the engine over it would blow bubbles in the antifreeze overflow tank.

 

If it's the headgasket wouldnt it leak antifreeze? Let me add something else. When i turn the engine over it would blow bubbles in the antifreeze overflow tank.

 

if your motor is the 2.4... yea famous for the head gasket crap... check to see if it was on recall.. im not sure.... cause a blown headgasket means the antifreeze will leak as a gas... it nees the pressure in the cooling system to stay a liquid... and an engine wont fire without compression in the cylinders....

 

yes, it's the head gasket.

this is just gen info depending on how bad the gasket blows.

the cooling sys runs about 15-20psi on most street cars. the oil sys runs about 15-90psi. during compression the cylinder can see upwards of 2500psi. during intake the cylinder makes a vacuum.

the head gasket creates a seal between the cylinders, oil, and cooling sys.

the most comon prob is between the oil/cooling sys. you will see coolant in the oil and oil in the coolant. norm fix is just to replace the gasket.

less common is a break between the cylinder/coolant sys. as the cylndr compresses it pushes air in to the cooling sys. during intake it sucks coolant into the cylndr, burns and evaps it during combustion. coolant goes away REAL fast and the only thing left to cool your eng is the oil, it get burnt up and smells like crap real fast. might be looking at a total eng rebuild because of the crankshaft bearings that are cooled by the oil (that got burnt up and couln't give good lube). the head might be warped because of the combustion heat and the cooling props of the coolant.

least common is all three. hate to say it, but...this sounds like you. you might be lucky and get away with just a gasket change. if you need a rebuild look into a used eng from a junkyard. should be less than $800. make sure you get a compress check BEFORE you buy a used eng. good luck.